


A Touch That's Worth One Thousand Words

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Also Lance is gay for Keith on the side, Angst with a Happy Ending, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Friendship, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 09:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16302860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lance is homesick and touch-starved. Keith leaves for the Blade and things get worse. Then he gets sick. Basically, Lance is a mess but his friends love him.





	A Touch That's Worth One Thousand Words

Lance grew up in a large family, surrounded by older siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, in a household that could only be described as boisterous. Living on a sterile castleship in the middle of space with only six other people couldn’t be more different.

At first, he’s happy for it. His own room, his own bathroom, even. The showers are still communal, but, like, he gets his own toilet. And mirror. The freedom in his space is exciting. It’s only later that the shadows start to creep in. 

It starts small, on nights after a failed mission, or a day of training where he feels like he just didn’t push hard enough. It grows, though. Soon, he’s still feeling hollow after a successful rescue, wishing he could see his mom’s smiling face, imagining how pride would shine in her eyes.

Loneliness. Homesickness. Whatever that other feeling is, the emptiness that has made a home in his heart. They’re all experiencing it, Lance knows, so he keeps quiet. The last thing he wants to do is be a burden on the team, not when they’re already struggling with so much. He decides the best thing he can do is deal with this on his own. Tear-stains on his pillow? He flips it over. Dark half-moons under his eyes? It’s because he was up late last night in the training room. It’s not a lie. Lance really was. It’s just that -- he was there because he suddenly realized he’d forgotten what his sister’s face looked like and he nearly had a panic attack before he thought to work through his feelings in another way. 

He loses his appetite at some point. It’s some point after Keith leaves to work with the Blade. With Keith around, things weren’t so bad. They had started to get good, actually. Companionship in the form of hand-to-hand in the training room, exploring crevices of the castle, friendly competitions over stupid things that always ended with laughter and gentle pushes.

It was the touches, too. Lance hadn’t realized how much he missed being around an affectionate family. Hunk is plenty affectionate, sure, but he’s been busy lately. It doesn’t feel right to interrupt his work just to curl into his lap. Pidge, while witty and fiercely loyal, doesn’t do the touchy-feely part of friendship. She prefers a good conversation over a meal than banter while they’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch. There’s nothing wrong with that, and Lance respects her boundaries. It’s just… hard. 

Shiro, Allura, and Coran are off limits. While Lance is proud to call all of them his friends, he doesn’t feel comfortable enough to, like, get cuddly. Even little stuff, like a fistbump. A high five. He’s still too shy around Shiro, is wary of scaring off Allura if she takes his friendliness as something more, and the age gap with Coran is too weird. Like, that man could be his grandfather, probably. He isn’t sure on his exact age, but he does know that Alteans don’t gray the way humans do. 

The first time someone makes a comment about his health is during dinner. Lance knew he couldn’t slide under the radar forever. It’s been a slow day for them, so they’re all paying more attention to each other than they usually do, without calculations to make or strategies to develop. 

“Hey, Lance -- are you doin’ okay?” Hunk asks, nudging his foot softly under the table. 

Lance meets his gaze, trying to avoid looking guilty. He knows he’s been picking at his food, but he’s having a hard time working up the appetite. “Yeah. Just tired.” They all are, have been for a year, so he isn’t sure how good of an excuse that is. He makes a point to eat a big spoonful of food goo, both to show that he’s eating and to avoid having to say any more. 

Hunk gives him a small smile, worry slightly creasing his brow, but leaves the subject alone.

Inevitably, Lance’s issues catch up to him. He wakes up one morning, and his muscles are aching. This part is normal for him, in fact, he’s grown used to the feeling, but this time it’s different. This time the aching muscles are accompanied by a stuffy nose and a sandpaper feeling at the back of his throat. Only a cold, so there’s no point in mentioning it. When he had one last month, he did everything the same as normal. It sucked, but he got through it.

The first thought through his head is the same one as everyday: _I miss Earth._ He’s feeling especially pathetic today, and as he sniffles his way through getting dressed, he remembers fondly how his mom used to make him her special soup when he wasn’t feeling well. How one time, his dad, who had never been very good at showing love to his kids, came into his room a day that he had to miss school and brushed back his hair to feel his fever, then sat down beside him on the bed and read him a story. He came home early to do that, Lance later learned.

He blinks hard, rubbing a sleeve over his eyes to get rid of any wetness before he heads out for breakfast. He’s not hungry today, but when is he ever? Life has become numb. A set of tasks for him to complete each day. He imagines that one day he’ll cease to be Lance and only be a robot programmed to carry out his duties.

Lance gets his bowl of food goo and sits down at the dining table without a word. He’s usually good at being talkative even when he doesn’t feel like it, rambling about surface stuff so no one thinks to look deeper, but today his throat is too sore. He accidentally breaks his silence when he has to pause to cough into his elbow.

“Sorry,” he murmurs when five sets of eyes turn towards him. And then, “Good morning.”

“No worries, Lance. Good morning.” Shiro nods to him, then turns back to whatever document he’s reading. He’s been weird lately. Harsh. Usually, Shiro is good at being strict, but also kind. Recently, that hasn’t been the case. He’s been butting heads with Allura over everything. Yelling more at everyone. Lance feels like he’s been getting the worst of it, but he doesn’t want to complain. Times have been tough for everyone lately, especially Shiro and Allura, so he’ll cut him some slack for losing his temper more often. He hates it, but he also gets it. Everyone deals with stress in different ways.

Hunk, of course, doesn’t let this drop so quickly. “Lance, you feelin’ alright?” Good ol’ Hunk. Always looking out for Lance. He really loves the guy. He hasn’t been hanging out with him as much. He should really get on that. Maybe a baking session, or a video game night. The latter he does with Pidge, but he’s been doing them on his own in recent weeks. He should ask her if she wants to hang out, too. He used to ask all the time, but he has stopped lately because he doesn’t want to come off as annoying. The worst thing that could possibly happen is for them to push him away. Then the little contact he gets would dwindle down to zero. Lance doesn’t know how he’d deal with that.

“Uh,” Lance clears his throat, glancing up from his bowl to see that how Pidge is squinting at him (never a good sign), and the Alteans still haven’t looked away. “Yeah.” It might be believable if he didn’t sound so congested. He sniffles, trying to deal with that issue, but it only makes him cough again. He quickly covers his face with his sleeve. “Sorry.”

“Lance, have you become infected with one of those human illnesses? That loud sound you made is similar to when Shiro's body was fighting one.” Damn Coran and his infatuation with Earth culture. A while ago, Shiro had gotten some sort of flu and Coran had spent the entire time studying him, until they’d dragged him off him, where he had instead questioned them on every aspect of the human condition. Lance would say it was around six months ago, but he’s honestly lost track of time out here.

“It’s called a cough, Coran.” Lance has to smile at that. He doesn’t think he’s truly smiled in a couple days. It feels nice.

“Lance -- for real, dude -- you don’t sound so hot.” Hunk isn’t one to be deterred. Seems like there’s no getting out of this.

Looking down, Lance smashes a bit of food goo under his spoon. “It’s just a cold,” he mumbles, suddenly wishing Keith was here. He’s really good at this sort of thing -- dealing with an issue quickly, but not dismissively like Shiro has been. He does it in a way that shows he still cares. Hunk is being so gentle about this that it’s embarrassing. If it was the two of them it wouldn’t matter, but now it’s a table discussion. “It’s not a big deal.”

Lance sneezes into his elbow, sniffling profusely afterwards. He wishes he had had the foresight to bring a box of tissues with him or at least shove a few in his pockets. “Sorry. I’ll be careful not to get anyone sick,” he promises, hoping that this conversation can end soon. The longer he sits here, the more garbage he feels, and he already wants to go back to bed and sleep this thing off.

Hunk starts to reply, but Pidge interrupts. “Don’t be stupid, Lance. Hunk is just asking because we care about you. And stop apologizing.” Sometimes Pidge’s bluntness is a blessing in disguise. _We care about you._ His eyes well up before he can stop them and he has to look down at his food and take his time having a bite before they’ve cleared.

“Thanks, guys.” Those words meant more to him than they could know. Or maybe they do. His friends can be surprisingly perceptive. Lance thinks he’s good at hiding his emotions, but they see right through him.

Whoa -- what is this? His eyes are flooding again. Why is he getting so emotional? He blames it on the lack of sleep, on the cold, on the fever that he might have. He doesn’t want to face his feelings. Lance sniffles and stands up abruptly, chair screeching across the floor. “I gotta go get a tissue.” He bolts for the hallway before everyone can see him cry.


End file.
